Re: Dynamic token kinds

[Frank Heckenbach]

Akim Demaille wrote:

> [gnulib]
> > I never liked that
> > design, and apparently it's now causing me actual problems by
> > breaking the simple download and vastly increasing the clone size
> > (AFAICS, most of it is downloading the gnulib history which I don't
> > care a tiny bit about, especially not when just trying to build
> > Bison).
> 
> I can understand this.  However, this is the only model I can
> see that really allows the maintainer of a package to be able
> to use the latest version of the library, in case it addresses
> a recent portability issue.

Does this happen so often? Otherwise, why not -- just like with any
other library -- let affected users upgrade their library once
instead of having to rebuild all packages that use it? IOW, why
should the maintainer of a package have to care about the library
version, as long as it satisfies her package's requirements, i.e.
specify a minimum version as required by the package?

> It's not too inconvenient to use
> as a user of git, and it's completely invisible for the end
> user (i.e., users of the tarballs).

Mostly ... ;)

> > Perhaps what I can do (as I slight kludge) for future patches is to
> [...]
> 
> The easiest, by far, would be for me to provide you with a
> viable tarball :(

That's a bit unpractical for every small change.

Regards,
Frank